Political science professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills

Why Is the European Union Haunted by Its Rejection of Turkey?

[But the Europen Union is not "haunted" by its rejection of Turkey. It hardly gives Turkey a thought. The indigenous peoples of Eurpoe just wish that they had not made the naive mistake, a few years ago, of allowing Erdogan to use the EU's stated requirements for admission to undo, using that very excuse, the power of the army, and the judicial system, and other pillars of Kemalism. A few years ago, still, Europeans did not grasp the nature of Islam, its texts, its tenets, its attitudes, its atmospherics, its effects on the minds of its adherents, from those who seemed outwardly to inhabit something like the same mental universe as people in the advanced non-Muslim world do, all the way to those who take Islam most to heart, which includes the ikhwan, the Salafists, and admirers of Osama Bin Laden.

Step by grim step, Erdogan and his party have been systematically attacking, and weakening, every element in Turkish society that protects Kemalism: the uniiversity rectors and professors, the judiciary, the army. And step by step, it is undoing, slowly and carefully, the reforms through which Ataturk managed to systematically constrain the political and social power of Islam. And the economic "success" of Turkey, which the writer finds so impressive, is mostly based on the creation, among a good quarter of the population, of secular attitudes, and of the rule of law of a secular state, one that European tourists,for example, find attractive (and they visit Turkey, by the many millions, not because of Islam but despite it, largely for the beaches, but also for the remains of classical antiquity, and of Byzantium (though a few, admittedly, are taken with one of Sinan's creations -- Sinan, who was raised as a Christian until his early manhood). Zaman Stanizai would never be able to recognize this -- the value of the Kemlist inheritance even now, and even to those Turkish industrialists who might think of themselves as true Muslims,and can't allow them to understand it is precisly all the things that distinguish Turkey from, say, any Arab country -- save possibly Tunisia -- that explain its economic success.

The farrago of absurdities in this article don't need any further comment; you can note them yourselves.

Posted: 07/09/2012 9:48 am

The shifting winds of the latest Greek and French elections turned the June 2012 European Summit in Brussels into "a defining moment for European integration." Now that the collapse of the euro has been averted through easy-term bank bailouts and an empowered European treasury, it's time to reflect on why Europe got into this mess in the first place.

What lies at the heart of Greece's insolvency, Europe's economic woes and, by extension, the global economic crisis is the scuttling of the admission process into the European Union. It has become evident now that Greece was admitted to the EU with a marginal economic performance to spite its archrival Turkey, which was denied admission despite its impressive 9 percent GDP growth. [no, Greece was admitted because Greece is part of Europe, an essential part of the history of Europe. Turkey, and especially a re-islamizing Turkey, never was, and cannot ever be. The Ottomans were once a threat to Turkey; the threat was eventually dealt with,and Turkey lost its empire, and in order even to survive in its reduced borders, Ataturk sensibly realized that he had to do something to constrain the retrograde power of Islam, and he did. And that is the secret of Turkey's success, and not anything else. And to the extent that Erdogan and his henchmen succeed in undoing Kemalism, to that extent they will -- despite now being able to flog their wares in the Gulf, and also having taken full advantage of American spending in Iraq -- find that Turkey's economy will suffer. It is not Turkey, but Kemalist Turkey, that Europeans can stomach -- just.]

Zeus may have blinded Plutus, the Greek god of wealth, so that he would give money randomly and the Sufi mystic Bahlol may have distributed Sultan Mahmoud's treasure among the rich because he gave it to those to whom God has given, but the mythically intertwined Greek and Turkish destinies were playing on a European stage against a backdrop of religious bigotry.

The candidacy of no other state generated more controversy than that of Turkey. European leaders portrayed Turkey as a threat to Europe. The French Prime Minister Jean Marie Raffarin said, "Do we want the river of Islam to enter the riverbed of secularism?"

Speaking at Oxford University in 2004, Erdoğan argued for a European "union of values," not "a narrowly defined geography or a union of rigidity," and called for a "peaceful cohabitation between Christians and Muslims." He added that the idea of a "Christian Europe belongs to the Middle Ages. It should be left there."

But mindsets reflecting the dark ages still saw the EU as a "Christian Club." Frits Bolkestien, a former EU commissioner and head of Dutch Liberal Party in rejecting Turkey's bid, said the "relief of Vienna [from an Ottoman army siege in 1683] will have been in vain." Peter Ford of the Christian Science Monitorsums it up bluntly: "It's more or less spoken or more or less hidden, but the major component in popular rejection of Turkey's admission is Islam."

Turkey bent over backward in making concessions on Cyprus, on its Kurdish minority, and a host of other human rights issues in order to meet a threshold of European demands, but to no avail. The hostility was not just toward a Muslim majority state, but also toward a state under the stewardship of a non-secular Islamist leaning AKP, the Justice and Development Party.

The Turks found an answer in the cause and clause of its European rejection and turned to the Muslim East where its economy thrives along with its many welcoming trade partners. Had Europe treated Turkey fairly and admitted it into the Union, its formidable growth engine would have pulled Europe out of such doldrums. Erdoğan's prophecy at Oxford is coming true in suggesting that "Turkey represents a burden-relieving dynamic for the EU."

The Justice and Development Party has effectively wedded Islamic liberalism with economic liberalism debunking every stereotype of Islam's incompatibility with modernity and industrialization. Turkey's economic growth in industrial development, international trade, and responsible banking and finance stands in stark contrast to Europe's succession of economic crisis.

The Erdoğan administration runs such a tight ship that in the midst of global financial crisis, not a single Turkish bank has gone under. Forbes magazine has ranked Istanbul as the fourth largest financial capital in the world. Turkey is the fourth largest shipbuilder in the world, the sixth largest motor vehicle producer and the largest television producer in Europe. Turkish Airlines is one of the fastest growing in the world and has won Europe's Best Airline award. Industrial growth in the cities of eastern Turkey has earned them the distinction of "the Anatolian Tigers."

European leaders have conveniently blamed Greece through a flurry of vicious comments insinuating that the Greeks are lazy and irresponsible while they hide their own acts of sheer folly.

Europe's religious bigotry has also resurfaced in Spain, whose economy, like that of Greece, was saved by the EU's bank bailout, but where Muslim immigrants get targeted for the Spanish police "arrest and fine" quotas. Lest they forget that it was the Reconquista and Inquisition campaigns scaring away the best and the brightest that lead to the decline of Spain as a European superpower. [I have the feeling that this Muslim writer's view of who were the "best and brightest" ejected fro Spain would not be those who most obviously come to mind] t

Worse yet, racism is spreading to Europe's pacifist north to the lands of Wallenberg, Hammarskjöld and Galtung. ]"rqacism" is the word he uses to describe alarm over Islam, and its carriers -- an alarm that has been far too slow to develop, and has done so not because of any propaganda campaign, but because the evidence of the meaning, and menace, of Islam has become so overwhelming, with more evidence piling up every day] This gives credence to the claim that religious and ethno-linguistic "superiority" in Europe is determined by a spatial and directional gradation favoring the north and west. The subliminal cross in the logo of NATO subconsciously implies the superiority of a Western alliance of the North (Atlantic Treaty Organization).]the "submliminal cross" -- good god]In this twist of irony, Turkey on the shores of the Black Sea is too far for an economic integration, but Libya in North Africa and Afghanistan, "a major non-NATO ally" in Central Asia are close enough for Western military power play.

A genuine European political and economic integration requires a mindset upgrade receptive to racial and religious diversity.[religious diversity? [Has Zaman Stanizai not seen what happens, under Islam, to Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists? To their churches, synagogues, temples? To their monuments? Is he unaware of what is in the Qur'an, Hadith, and Sira about how Muslims are to treat non-Muslims? Has he never been curious as to how all those Greeks, and to a lesser extent Jews and Armenians, over the centuries saw their numbers shrivel, as they either were killed, or driven out, or converted? How many "Turks" -- Seljuk or Osmanli -- actually invaded the Christian-populated Anatolia, or are most of those who are now called Turks really the peoples of the Byzantine Empire who, over time,, to avoid having to endure the Jizyah and other crushing burdens, decided to say the Shehada and be done with it?]